American Horror Story: Season 5, Ep. 11 ~ Battle Royale

After a truly wonderful cliff hanger for the holiday season, AHS is back. In case you need a light refresher, Liz and Iris went gangster and barged into the Countess’s room, guns blazing. These two divas have had it with living under the oppressive and emotionally selfish regime of the Countess and they ain’t going to take it no more! Too bad Donovan really did love the Countess because Iris was definitely not counting on him to take bullets meant for his one true love. Not wanting to be trapped in the hotel with all of her other lovers, Iris and Liz take Donovan out to the street so he can live his afterlife in peace and Iris finally gets some love and respect from her son with his dying breath.

Liz Taylor really is a great gal to be friends with. She burns Donovan’s body for Iris and puts those gorgeous cheekbones into an economy size tub of Campfire Gold coffee. Iris takes this opportunity to tell Donovan everything she always wanted to say and then she throws him all over the hotel room. As Iris stands atop the roof of the hotel in her sad, middle aged woman clothing and her “I’ve given up on life” hair, we see her finally let go and are reminded of why Kathy Bates is the shit.
Meanwhile, the Countess is down in Hypodermic Sally’s hovel getting her bullets removed and it looks pretty damn awful. After using her fingers to gouge the bullets out of her body, Sally begins sewing up the wounds and we finally learn how she ended up in the hotel and why she has that atrocious hair:because she was a part of the grunge music and drug scene.

“Has there ever been a more aptly named style of music than grunge?” No, Liz, I don’t think there has and Sally and her two “musician” friends are not doing the image any favors. After the three of these junkies get high and have an impromptu orgy, Sally is feeling so in love that she sews all three of their bodies together. Unfortunately, her partners OD and she is left in a grody hotel bed with two dead bodies sewn to hers. To make matters worse, the Addiction Demon shows up and tortures her for three days. Finally having had enough of all of this, she rips herself away in a sad, cringe inducing moment. This entire story is precisely the harrowing and disgusting backstory I had hoped for with Sally.

Sad Sally only wants John back and she will save the Countess in order to make it happen. Again, the selfish nature of the Countess shines through and this works in Sally’s favor. Sure, sure the Countess protests at the suggestion of killing two of her children to allow her to live, but she goes through with it. Why? The woman has lived multiple lifetimes, her true love is dead, his stand in is dead and two of her vampire children are no longer with her. She should have just let herself die. We all know that Ramona, Liz and Iris would not kill the remaining vampire children. They would have take care of them and everyone could live in harmony. The Countess may have fierce style, but she’s an ugly human being and she keeps driving that point home again and again.

Liz and Iris are now properly terrified of where the Countess is and what she plans on doing with them, so they go and release the one weapon that can take her down. Ramona Royale. Ramona is pissed off and she’s hungry:two things that can drive any woman to murder. Enter Queenie. Yes ma’am, Queenie from Coven is in L.A. to go on the Price is Right, but she’s going to have to tangle with Ramona Royale instead. Queenie utilities her human voodoo doll gift, but Mr. March shows up to help Ms.Royale out. March is a ghost, so Queenie’s talent won’t work on him and, besides, he needs Ramona to be rejuvenated by witch blood because he wants the Countess to be with him forever and ever and, as we just discussed, Ramona is the only one who can possibly take the Countess down. Or is she?

Scarlett, the least undervalued child in L.A. county, is back home with her family which is now comprised of two vampires and a serial killer. Yay for family togetherness. This reunion is short lived, though, because both March and Sally want John back at the hotel. The easiest way to do this is to hold Alex, Scarlett and Holden hostage until John finishes the Ten Commandments killings. There is only one commandment left:thou shalt not commit murder. Well, the choices for this one are limitless, but I think we all know where this is going. Also, let’s not even get into someone murdering another person for committing the crime of murder.

Ramona and the Countess finally have their final show down and, appropriately, it’s set to The Stone Roses song “I Want to be Adored”. A tragic love story demands an equally somber, yet beautiful, song and seeing these two women negotiate their breakup and have one last tryst was heartbreaking for all of the right reasons and I’m not too proud to admit that I have cried every single time I’ve watched it.

Just when the Countess thinks she’s going to walk away and live happily ever after with Bartholomew, John Lowe is waiting for her in the elevator. He flashes a sexy, self satisfied smirk and fills her with bullets. Her look of genuine surprise coupled with that gorgeous white jacket that billows out as she falls to the ground is a moment of utter beauty. It’s like watching an old noir movie come to life in glorious technicolor and to see the Countess finally get her comeuppance is extremely satisfying. Unfortunately, not as satisfying, is the egregiously obvious nod to Se7en. The last kill involved a main character and it was a beautiful blonde who lost her head. Yawn.

In another unsurprising twist, March doesn’t let Sally kill John because John still has lots of murdering to do out in the real world. I’m cool with that. Possibly John Lowe can make a surprise appearance in a future AHS season. Assuming he makes it out of next week’s episode alive.

Mr. March is giddy as a school boy to have his one true love forever trapped with him in the hotel, but not so fast with the celebrating. Since we’re at it, let’s go ahead and add one more unsurprising plot twist: of course Miss.Evers turned March in. She loves him more than her new clothing detergent. Unfortunately, he is more than upset by this and banishes her from his presence. Something tells me that we haven’t seen the last of her. One of the main threads of the season has been, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and Miss.Evers definitely has some hard feelings and built up resentment.

Well, what’s it going to be TV Babies? Who is going to make it out of this season alive and who still has some debts to pay? At this point, no one really seems to be safe.